


Second String

by kalypsobean



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Football, Alternate Universe - High School, Canonical Character Death, Cousin Incest, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 22:23:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1404688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick and Axel are cousins who go to Athens-Clarke High - Axel is the golden boy quarterback and Patrick is the new kid who hasn't quite grown into himself. Because this is high school, people talk, and their talk has consequences. (A modern-day AU based on the Iliad and focusing on the relationship between Patroclus (Patrick) and Achilles (Axel).)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second String

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegirlwiththemouseyhair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththemouseyhair/gifts).



> This is for a request by thegirlwithmouseyhair, who asked for a Greek/Roman mythology retelling with modern psychology and maybe an AU. 
> 
> Please note that the schools are fictional schools, though there is an Athens in Georgia. It is also on the gennish side, although Achilles and Patroclus do mess around, because this is high school it's not the focus of the story and it is not graphic.

It was hard being a freshman and the younger cousin of the school quarterback, the golden godlike Achilles of the Athens-Clarke Achaeans. It wasn't supposed to be easy, being high school and all, but everyone expected him to be a certain way and as much as he tried, he wasn't. He hadn't finished his growth spurt yet, although he matched Axel egg for egg at breakfast, and he wasn't exactly fantastic at sports, although he did okay at track back in West Virginia, before his mom died and he had to move to Georgia. Axel tried, too, and what they got up to in the room they shared was none of anyone's business, but at school they didn't even share lunch. 

So, it was hard. He learned to respond when the teachers called him Axel and to ignore the whispers from the pretty girls who never spoke directly to him, and did his best as equipment manager for the football team. He didn't know whether they gave that to him because he missed tryouts, or because of Axel, but he didn't mind so much; he got to stick around after school when Axel did, so he never had to walk home alone, and in between lugging ball bags and filling the water cooler he got to learn the plays. 

But Axel made it easy to smile at the end, when the sun was going down and they were walking home; he'd sling an arm over his shoulders and pull him in so their shadows were linked in front of them. "I'm glad you're here, Pat," he'd say, and that would be that.

 

He knew people talked, but it wasn't a big deal; he was the new boy, and people always talked about the new boy, even when he wasn't exactly new anymore. People even talked about Axel, about Adam and Manny, but it was just talk. His mom always told him to ignore that kind of thing, so he kept his nose in his books and pretended that there was another Patrick out there. If he did well, he could follow Axel to any college in the country, and they could be anything they wanted.

"Don't let them get to you," Axel said, as they walked home one day. "They don't know anything."

 _But they do_ , Patrick wanted to say, _they know the things we don't say_.

 

The pep rally before the biggest game of the season was the worst Patrick had ever been to. The rivalry between the Achaeans and the Ila High Trojans was beyond anything he'd experienced back home; someone threw a doll dressed in Trojan colours on the bonfire and it made the smoke smell acrid. His eyes were watering and his stomach was painfully flip-flopping like he'd eaten something bad. Adam and Manny were laughing, surrounded by the team and the cheerleaders, and it seemed like the night before a war; everyone was high on the idea that this year they were blessed, this year they would win, and Patrick wanted to be up there with them with the school screaming for him instead of at him, just to know what it would feel like. There was even a spot up there, right between Chrystal and Adam, where he would fit. 

"Ready to go, Pat?" Axel appeared from nowhere, like an apparition in the smoke, or something from a dream; the flames lit his hair from behind and made him look like an angel. There was nothing in the world, not even dreams of glory or acceptance, that would have made him stay; he let Axel take his arm in front of everyone and followed him into the dark.

 

"I'm not going," said Axel, when Patrick tried to wake him up for the game. They had a routine, clockwork to the point of superstition, and this was not it. It was cereal and bacon and eggs, bags by the door for when Axel's dad got out the shower and was ready to drop them at the school on his way to work. Axel not getting out of bed at sunrise to do sprints in the yard was not part of that at all.

"But Coach Noone said there would be a scout from Cal State," Patrick said, even though San Francisco was pretty much a done deal but for signatures and an under-the-table signing bonus. "Is it about Brynna? Are you sick?"

"I'm not playing," said Axel again, and he pulled the covers up over his face. Patrick couldn't even tickle him, let alone try anything else, and he figured it would pass. Axel could be stubborn, but he loved to play.

But Axel didn't come down to breakfast; Patrick left a plate in the microwave and let Axel's dad drive him to the school without even a word. 

"He'll come round," he said before he drove off, but Patrick wasn't sure.

 

The locker room seemed bigger without Axel there, though just as loud and dirty. Patrick got out the helmets and changed the studs on cleats but nobody asked him where Axel was; it was like they didn't even notice. 

They didn't notice at all when Patrick slipped into his cousin's pads and jersey, and into the huddle with paint on his face and helmet in his hand. 

"Will your baby cuz suck you off when we win, oh fleet-footed Achilles?" Adam said, smacking him on the back and ducking off to laugh with Manny. Patrick blushed under the paint, but he said nothing; Axel would have said nothing, and his mom always told him to ignore that kind of talk. 

"Let them choose whether to receive, we want the north end," Coach Noone said; Patrick ran out to the toss as if he was in a dream, and the roar of the crowd deafened him to anything else. _Axel must feel like this all the time_ , he thought, and then _I can't let him down_. He couldn't let them think their words hurt Axel at all, not golden boy untouchable Axel who carried the team on his back, and he couldn't let the team suffer for it. But still, this was big, and the Trojans were even bigger. Coach Noone was yelling at him and he could see Acton by the water table, Brynna and Chrystal in their sun-coloured dresses, but he could only hear the sound of blood rushing in his ears, like adrenaline taking over everything to leave him only with instinct. 

"Myrmidon Sixteen," he called, reading the signal from Coach Noone the way he'd seen Axel do, and he caught the ball; he stepped back and threw it towards someone in gold, running, and then he felt something across his neck and in his chest, and his head hit the ground before his body did.

 

He woke up in a room that was white, and he couldn't feel anything at all. 

"Tell him I died," he said, because Axel would be outside, and he didn't want to be seen like this. "Tell him," he said, and he died.


End file.
